


Complicated Questions

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [41]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Honesty, Love, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 04:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18731248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "Well that's a pretty complicated question," he says, because it's true. Nothing but the truth.





	Complicated Questions

He doesn't know how it comes up.

They're not doing anything in particular. They're sitting on the couch battery-style with their legs tangled together and she's trying to figure out knitting for the thousandth time while he reads over important documents for Kakashi to determine which ones he can fill out and which ones will need to be addressed directly by the Hokage. Then she just suddenly puts her knitting down and stares at him, and he glances up at her over the top of the paper currently in his hand and raises his eyebrow, and she just sort of spontaneously asks. "Are you in love with Ino?"

He's taken aback, really. Temari has known as long as they've been together that he and Ino used to date. He's been nothing but transparent about that. The circumstances of their relationship and of their break-up, of course, have been kept a  _little_ foggy, but he wouldn't lie about it if she were to ask. He's just always thought it'd be too troublesome to talk about with her when she has a hair-trigger temper like hers and things like that seem to set her off for absolutely no reason. "I mean, I know that you two dated for a really long time and you loved each other and you were probably  _in love_ with each other, but I mean... Are you  _still_ in love with Ino?"

He opens his mouth to reassure her that he's not, because he knows that's what she wants to hear, but then his mind wanders to when he and Ino started dating when they were fifteen. He'd just been in Suna for a mission for almost a year, and he hadn't been able to write to Ino because he'd felt like he couldn't put all of what he wanted to say to her in a letter-- at least, not one that a hawk could carry. Not one that could do justice to what he felt for her. She'd been waiting at the gate for him, and his heart had fluttered even as he recognized how angry she was the moment he saw her. Ino has always been so pretty when she was angry.

He thinks of when he dragged her off from her own father's funeral-- from their fathers' shared funeral-- because she'd looked like she was going to break apart at the seams at any minute and he knows how much she's always hated crying in front of people. She'd bummed a cigarette from him and immediately gagged at the taste.

He remembers when they'd sneaked up to his room during their shared 17th birthday party (and it was really only her birthday, but his was the day before hers and he's never minded sharing because the look on Ino's face when she opens a present or sees a friend for the first time in a while is the best gift he could ask for any given year) and made out for half an hour and then spent another fifteen minutes looking for her shirt when they realized that they didn't really have time to have sex in his childhood bedroom before everyone realized they were gone. About four seconds after she'd found it and put it back on, Chōji knocked on the door to let them know that it was time for dinner.

He recalls the time they were fifteen and they were sent on a mission just the two of them and it was only their sixth or seventh time having sex but they'd had a hotel room all to themselves because Chōji hadn't been sent with them and it had felt so adult. It had felt like they were an old married couple and it was their thousandth time sleeping together, and he sometimes wonders if Ino felt the same way in that moment.

He doesn't want to remember anything else even though they have a lifetime of memories together. He can think of the first time that he thought she was pretty, or the first time she forced him to play wedding with her (and a part of him still reads into the fact that she always played wedding with him and never Chōji like he's nine again), or the first time he wanted to punch a boy in the face for commenting on her body, but he doesn't want to. It's not his place to think of a lifetime of memories with Ino.

He is sure, in this moment, that Temari wants him to say that he's not. But he and Temari have been dating for just over two years and he has made it his policy in that time to be completely honest with her, always, even as he hasn't always felt like she's been that way with him.

He knows it's been too long for her to believe him if he lied, anyway. He's been silent for too much time and if he said no now she'd call him on it immediately, so the only option he is left with is the truth. "Well that's a pretty complicated question," he says, because it's true. Nothing but the truth. "I guess on a level... yeah, I am. On a level, it's always been Ino. And on a level, it'll always be Ino. I can't really... That's not the sort of thing you can just stop. But that doesn't mean I don't love you, Temari. On a level, it'll always be you, too."

Her face falls for just a moment. He can see it. The  _I'll always be in love with both of you_ , while the truth, isn't exactly the answer she was likely fishing for. At the very least, he can say that he's glad it's not an argument. She's not screaming in his face just yet which means she probably won't say anything other than some mild passive aggression in a couple of weeks if she's seriously mad about it. Finally, after a long time, she takes a long breath and picks up her knitting again. "No, I guess that isn't the sort of thing you can just stop. No matter how much you might want to."


End file.
